Provisional Course Schedule

Fall 2013

With Assigned Readings from the Textbook and Course Content Links

Topics may be slightly updated as course progresses. If
there are any changes in deadlines they will be announced well in
advance.

In addition to the assigned readings specified in the schedule,
students are responsible for reading the Course Content Links, from
the bordered grid of links on the Course
Information page as these links become activated on the web. (I
will also gradually enter these links on this page.)

Exams will cover readings, the two DVD episodes,
class lectures and discussions,
the web materials in the Course Content Links and this page, and any materials
distributed in class. The short vocabulary quizzes are based on
the sets of "Word Elements" in the textbook (which I sometimes refer
to as "Morpheme Sets"), and listed at the end of most of the chapters.
The quizzes taken all together will be worth 5% credit.

Any illness or other disaster that keeps a student from taking an
exam or quiz during the assigned time must be reported to me (kemmer AT
rice.edu) before the exam is due (if you can't notify me, then ask your
parent or college master to do so). There are no make-up exams for
non-emergency situations.

There will not be a final examination, but instead a third and
non-comprehensive midterm.

I'll repeat this from above: Topics may be slightly updated as course
progresses. If there are any changes in deadlines they will be posted and
announced well in advance.

Day

Date

Topic

Text and web readings; Assignments

M

Aug 26

Introduction. What do
we know about English? (Or think we know?)
What kind of a language is
English? What language(s) are most closely related to English?
Some basic concepts. What are "related languages"; "sister languages";
ancestor/descendent languages;
Germanic languages; Anglo-Saxon/Old English?

DVD: The Adventure of
English, Part 1, narrated by Melvyn Bragg, viewed in class.
The beginnings of English. Celts and Romans. The Germanic
migration: Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians sail to Britain and
settle as farmers. Fusion of tribes into an Anglo-Saxon culture and
nation. The Viking invasions.

Chapter 2 p. 19-28 (to middle of page). View links
for history of English on our course home page: the maps, chronology,
etc. Chronology of the English Language to
10th century.

M

Sept 2

Labor Day Holiday. No class.

Continue exploring links above.

W

Sept 4

Anglo-Saxon culture,
literature, religious institutions. Alfred's kingdom of Wessex and its
legacy. DVD: The Adventure of English Part 1, cont. The Viking
conquest of the north and the partition of England.

The second big invasion of Anglo-Saxon England: The Norman Conquest.
Consequences of the conquest. Adventure of English Part II (at least
some of it in class. Can review/view rest by checking it out of
Reserves at Fondren.)

Chapter 2, cont. to Middle English.
Lord's Prayer through time.
Quiz Word Elements 1 (Ch. 1 only), activated
after class .
Reminder: All quizzes, tests, midterms are online, closed
book/notes/electronic devices, pledged, timed but generous amount
allowed. Do not discuss exams or quizzes with others until all are
submitted and graded. You might get into an Honor Code
violation if the conversation unexpectedly alludes to test materials
others have not seen yet.

M

Sept 9

Layers of borrowings in the English vocabulary. Characteristics of
different layers of loanwords. Nativization: Loanwords over time can
become more like native English words. Changes in technology lead to
changes in meaning and 'lexical fossils' of old technology.

The emergence of Early Modern English: the language of Jonson, Marlowe
and Shakespeare in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. The King James Bible.
Modern English, 18th century: Samuel Johnson, Jonathan Swift, Joseph Addison;
the American 'founding fathers'. 19th century: Noah Webster. British
vs. American English: 2 standard varieties.
Basic concepts: standardization; standard variety; dictionaries;
prescriptivism; language purists. Announcement of
opportunity for extra credit: create a short video on some topic
relating to course topics.

Word formation in English: Word structure and word
analysis. Inflectional vs. derivational morphology.
Complexity of Greek/Latin (Classical) words and their
parsing. Borrowed morphology in English: Latinate suffixes (= suffixes
from Latin and French).
The many suffixes of English and their functions. Adjective suffixes
and verb suffixes.

Compounding and affixation cont. The nature and functions of prefixes vs. suffixes in English.
Affixes of English cont. Noun-forming, verb-forming, and adjective-forming suffixes. The
nature of meaning: the flexibility of form-meaning relations.

Allomorphy: The variants of a morpheme. The English plural morpheme
and its allomorphs.
NB: 5% extra credit for this class for making a short creative video (3-5
mins) about some interesting aspect of English words.

Ch. 4. Quiz Word Elements 3, activated
after class.

F

Sept 27

Allomorphy. Distinguishing allomorphs of the same
morpheme. Phonologically-based allomorphy.

Ch. 7. Midterm
#1 due SATURDAY 5pm. Does not include Friday's material.

M

Oct 21

Polysemy and its relation to semantic change.
Polysemy in suffixes and prefixes. Finite
words, infinite concepts.
Metaphor and metonymy as cognitive processes in speakers/hearers that can lead to change; as
well as types of changes (viewed after a change has become
conventionalized). Spatial metaphor in Classical prefixes
(e.g. hyper-, hypo-, super-, sub- and others). Ch. 7 cont.
More kinds of
semantic change (book: 'results' of change): broadening and narrowing,
amelioration, pejoration, eponymy. Start looking at Word Stories. What types of change can you
identify in these examples? Discussion of Word Journal entries: Kinds of
words that can be collected, content of entries, level of
detail.

Ch. 7 cont.

W

Oct 23

Metaphor cont. Taboo and euphemism; the cycle of euphemism.
Etymology. Word stories: the historical trajectory of words through time.

Other changes. Changes in older loanwords from French (ca
1100-1450); derivational relations with Latin loanwords. (A few of
these changes were discussed preliminarily in Ch. 6 and in class on
Oct. 8 in the section on Other Sound Changes and Morphologically
Determined Sound Changes.)

The Linguistic Relatives of English. The Indo-European language
family. Comparison of cognates.
Recurrent sound correspondences. Reconstruction of vocabulary of a
proto-language. Grimm's law (first part).

Ch. 8 cont. Introduction to Shibboleths: Language as a group-defining tool. Language and power.
The Story of the Shibboleth.
For Word Journal: Be sure to read/review the part of Chapter 3 on word
formation processes (derivation, compounding, clipping, blending,
acronyms, etc. so you can check the classifications of the words you submit. Also review Word formation
processes and types.
Completed Word Journal due.
Neologisms and the information you collected on them
must be entered into database. A
MicroSoft Word file uploaded to your Dropbox on Owlspace as well will be so
helpful to me! Many people collect their Word Journal in a Word file
throughout the semester and cut and paste the entries into the
database. (Note: The Dropbox is there now, as of 11/25
a.m.).
Word Journal before entering your words, so that you get the
right information in the right fields.

W

Nov 27

No class.

Review
materials incl. above websites.

F

Nov 29

Thanksgiving holiday, no class.

No reading.

M

Dec 2

Language variation cont.
Spelling and grammar shibboleths as a
minefield for those with less access to education, and, basically,
everyone under the power of prescriptive (and sometimes not
knowledgeable) people. Video clip (in Owlspace Resources in
folder English Dialects): Kid of 24 accents in English, native and
foreign.

Slang page.
Student videos can also be
reviewed; they are uploaded to our Resources site. Recap on Course
Expectations will be useful to see whether you can accomplished the
course objectives (which this assessment tests, like the other exams).
Midterm topics
and terminology see Review page for
Midterm 2.Midterm #2 activated. Total time
allowed is 3 hours. The exam is designed
to be done in about an hour and a half. A good deal of extra time is given in
case it helps relieve test anxiety or in case you need food or nap or
other breaks.
Midterm #2 officially due 11:55p.m.. Extension if needed, until
TUESDAY 12/10 11:55pm.

S-T

Dec 7-10 Saturday to Tuesday

Study days, formerly known as Dead Week.

Zombies.

W-W

Dec 11-18 Wed-Wed.

Final Exam Week.

No final exam in the class. Take care of
yourself! Don't overdo the all-nighters,
caffeine consumption, or sugar consumption.